I recently noticed that a number of issues of Ling long magazine were online on the Internet Archive. Ling long was a popular women's magazine published in Shanghai from 1931 to 1937, during a time of dramatic social and political
change in China. Today, the magazine offers researchers (and the curious like myself) an unique glimpse
into women's lives in Republican-era China.
I know most all of Louise Brooks' American films were shown in Shanghai at one time or another. And so, I was curious to know if anything about the actress or her films might find their way into this attractive illustrated magazine which sometimes featured American film stars on its cover. I was disappointed not to find anything about the actress - but I did find a lot of nifty stuff which I thought to share on this blog.
I found stuff about short hairstyles for women (shown last - but very interesting to devotees of the bob hairstyle), as well as stuff about American movie stars of the time like Adolphe Menjou (Brooks' two time co-star), Anna May Wong (the Chinese-American actress who starred in Picadilly), Marion Davies, Norma Shearer, Greta Garbo, Pola Negri and even Peggy Fears (Brooks' Ziegfeld Follies friend). But alas, no Brooks. The search goes on.... (The paired pages are my composite, and are not as they originally appear in the magazine.)
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Adolphe Menjou and other stars in caricature
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Marion Davies - Brooks' friend and confidant
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Fay Wray - who I once had the chance to meet
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Pola Negri
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Norma Shearer
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Mary Brian, star of The Street of Forgotten Men
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Is this Esther Ralston?
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Garbo - can anyone tell me what these pages say? What is it with the tree and the snake?
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A rather curious juxtaposition of images? A suggestion of lesbian longing?
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A mannish Marlene Dietrich
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The one and only Peggy Fears
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Something about how much money the stars make?
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Carole Lombard and Myrna Loy - a blonde comparison
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"Sweetheart Bob"
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"Girlie Mannish"
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"Boyish Bob"
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| "Egyptian Bob" |
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| "Pineapple" |
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Can anyone tell me what this page is about? Does the image depict slavish devotion?
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Peter Miller emailed to say:
ReplyDelete"The wooden caricatures shown in the first illustration of your post today were very familiar as they appeared in the pages of VANITY FAIR magazine around 1930. They also appear in THE VANITY FAIR BOOK, published in 1931 on page 105.
Here is the short blurb appearing on the page with them:
HOLLYWOODEN CELEBRITIES
Nikolaus Wahl, in Paris, creates caricatures of film stars out of planed and highly polished wood.
Thank you!
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